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Archiver > TMG > 2002-02 > 1012605766


From: "Darrell A. Martin" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] GEDCOM and transfer (was Re: Witness and Roles and V5.0)
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 17:22:46 -0600
References: <35.2174e297.298c3574@aol.com>
In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20020201144206.00bfbad0@pop.nycap.rr.com>


At 02:48 PM 2/1/02 -0500, Joe Makowiec wrote:
>>[snip]
>
>Agreed. I've given up posting GEDCOMs in favor of .pdfs - If you want my
>data badly enough, you'll rekey it (or at least cut and paste).
>
>Joe

Hi, Joe:

My employer has a customer that requires us to put all the necessary
information to receive our product into a standard barcode format on an
abrasion-resistant shipping label. When it arrives at their dock, their
receiving clerk carries the box over to a dumb terminal and rekeys the
information. Makes you wonder why they bother to use barcodes at all; after
all, we could send them *.pdf files. (Sorry, I spent much of today tweaking
barcode formats.)

Still, your idea is a really good one, *IF* there is a way to find your
data so I can decide whether I *want* to rekey it. The way to determine
that, to gain acceptance for use beyond your personal files, has to be
maintainable across mass quantities of disjoined data. GEDCOM-based
indexing programs, and GEDCOM-interpreting programs, are all over the
place. Kind of makes it hard to kill the beast <grin>.

I'd rather have suspect data - that I have some hope of finding and
evaluating - than for there to be "perfect" data on everything I want, but
written in Esperanto on parchment and stored in the cellar of the Vatican
Museum with no catalogue. I know not to trust everything I get
electronically, because I know not to trust other sources uncritically
either. I would prefer nobody tell me I am not allowed to see someone
else's work - or send my work to them - until the methods of transmission
measure up to some standard. "Not allowed" exaggerates my case, but you get
the point.

GEDCOM is here. GEDCOM is now. GEDCOM is useful. GEDCOM is darned near
universal, and for good reasons. GEDCOM is a PC running Windows 3.0 when
there are Macintoshes available (and we know how *that* contest has played
out). GEDCOM is also abused, limiting, infuriating, and primitive. GEDCOM
is being put to uses for which it was never intended, and which its design
restricts.

Give me something better - delivered and readily available to anybody who
wants it - and I'll treat GEDCOM with the affection one would usually
reserve for a skunk that has been sleeping on the double yellow lines for
two days <grin>. Until then, GEDCOM output will remain a necessary factor
in any genealogical program's success in gaining and holding market share
and mind share, whether the public at large's or mine.

Darrell


Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter currently in exile in Addison, Illinois



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